Rancid?

A fleeting lunchtime visit.  Fully-winged (always a positive thing for a bird) and unringed.  Shared the pond with Goosander, amongst other stuff,... mergansertastic.

  Two in the Azores, another in Iceland and one in Wiltshire,...

... it's an invasion!

Also saw a Grey Wagtail minus its tail today,... so, almost literally, a Grey Wag. 

[Addendum: turns out there have been two in Iceland this winter, another in the Faroes and one in Scotland.  This bird also moved on after six days, fed in a natural manner and wasn't ridiculously tame, e.g. the Lesser Scaup at Bryn Bach came just as close,...  half a chance of acceptance?]

It hadn't gone far

Ten years, one month and four days since I last saw Red-necked Grebe in Gwent,... another one! All the better this time for being on the patch. For details of the previous bird click here. Jeebus! Just realised I've been flogging away at this blog for over a decade. What. A. Criminal. Waste. Of. Time.

A nice grebe on a nice sunny late afternoon at Uskmouth.

Mostly grey and green,... mostly

An unsuspecting lone birch mooches in the corner of a rushy field whilst, over the ridge, come the alien hordes.  Run birch! RUN!

Another couple of weeks up and down to a wet and windy Scotland.  Another couple of weeks interspersed by the odd raptor, a few Pinkfeet, increasingly frisky Crossbills, etc., etc.